The Day the Earth Stood Still ***** (1951, Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Hugh Marlowe) – Classic Movie Review 3648

Director Robert Wise’s classic 1951 sci-fi movie The Day the Earth Stood Still stars Michael Rennie as a humanoid alien visitor who arrives on planet Earth in Washington from space to tell us Earthlings that we must live in peace or be destroyed.

The star’s lofty, distant character is perfectly employed as the extra-terrestrial diplomat called Klaatu, who descends with Gort (Lockard Martin), his powerful eight-foot tall laser-eyed silver droid, from a flying saucer to deliver an important message and put an end to war on Earth. Klaatu tells scientists that the people of Earth have a choice. They can join the other planets in peace but, should they threaten to extend their violence into space, ‘this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. We shall be waiting for your answer.’

Director Wise films in documentary style and maintains the tension throughout, helped by Edmund H North’s first-rate, message-laden screenplay (based on a 1940 science fiction short story Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates) and Bernard Herrmann’s notable, rousing score. All the film’s elements come together at a high level of achievement, and its striking black-and-white images (cinematographer Leo Tover) and ideas are worth millions of dollars of today’s costly special effects.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is important and entertaining in its own right, and an archetype for things to come.

Stuart Whitman’s uncredited debut. Also in the cast are Patricia Neal as Helen Benson, Hugh Marlowe as Tom Stephens, Sam Jaffe as Professor Jacob Barnhardt, Billy Gray as Bobby Benson, Frances Bavier, Lock Martin, Drew Pearson, Frank Conroy, Carleton Young, Fay Roope, Edith Evanson, Robert Osterloh, Tyler McVey, John Brown, James Seay, James Craven, George Jynn, John Burton and George Reeves. Patricia Neal was only 12 years older than Billy Gray, who plays her son.

Well-known broadcast journalists, H. V. Kaltenborn, Elmer Davis, Drew Pearson, and Gabriel Heatter, appear or are heard as themselves in cameos.

Edmund North created the alien language used in the film, including the phrase ‘Klaatu barada nikto’. Rather weirdly, it became a worldwide catchphrase at the time. The phrase was never translated in the film and neither North nor 20th Century Fox released a translation.

[Spoiler alert] Near the end of the film, Klaatu is pursued by the American military and instructs Helen Benson to memorise the phrase and, if anything happens to him, she must say it to the robot Gort. In response Gort relents from destroying the Earth and resurrects Klaatu from death. ‘There’s no limit to what he [Gort] can do. He could destroy the Earth… If anything should happen to me you must go to Gort, you must say these words: ‘Klaatu barada nikto’. Please repeat that.’

In the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, the line ‘Klaatu barada nikto’ was added at Keanu Reeves’s insistence. Klaatu uses it near the beginning of the movie to shut Gort down, and again (distorted and barely audible) at the end when he stops the destruction of the Earth.

In the 1982 movie Tron, Alan Bradley’s cubicle has a sign that reads ‘Gort, Klaatu Barada Nikto’.

In the 1983 movie Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi, one of the aliens in the repulsor skiff at the Pit of Carkoon is called Klaatu’ (of “Nikto” species) and another one is called ‘Barada’.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3648
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